Duvet-day discoveries
The lasting joy of culture consumed while being off sick
This week I’ve been taken out at the knees by a proper, old-school, torrential cold. No ifs, no buts, no coconuts, and certainly no college - I’ve been confined to the sofa surrounded by a wall of damp tissues with plenty of germs to keep me company. I had some paid work to do, but thankfully I could do it in pyjamas, over the course of four days, breaking off when I felt myself listing to port and urgently needing a lie-down. Other than only having half a working ear (and a soundtrack of what sounds like a distant traffic jam from its blocked counterparts), a leaking face and not being hungry, a truly anomalous state of affairs, it’s been quite nice to surrender. I could stay extremely near a blanket at all times and cancel everything.
It has reminded me of being at home ill during my school years - a pretty regular occurrence as I was a sickly child, blessed with a strong streak of anxiety that manifested in upset stomachs, throbbing headaches and dark looks from my form teachers at yet another absence. The bliss of putting one’s hot head onto a cool pillow, of Heinz tomato soup dotted with islands of bread and butter and possibly that strawberry-flavoured medicine rather than a day in the crucible of the classroom was healing in itself.
Those duvet-lined days were also a portal to other worlds and their inhabitants, in the form of books and TV. Feeling a kinship with yellow, sickly Mary and poor old Colin in The Secret Garden, and pondering the bizarre plot points in What Katy Did at School (quibbles over washstands? Boxes full of jumblies? Making Garlands for Commencement?) kept me occupied until tea time. As a teenager I gorged on Agatha Christie (introducing me to beach pyjamas and dreadful second wives galore) and devoured Dracula while wanly wilting on my bed, wishing it was a chaise longue.
The most thrilling discovery in all of my sick-day career was the 1945 film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I caught it one afternoon, curtains closed against the sunlight lest they hurt my, sniff sniff, tender eyes. I think I was dimly aware that this was an Interesting Thing, the name vaguely recognisable but ultimately mysterious. What a find! Atmospheric black and white elegance, drama and debauchery before *spoiler alert* the grand reveal in gruesome technicolour of the raddled, sin-drenched portrait at the end. A gasp was sharply taken! Nerves were jangled! Bedding was clutched! As soon as I could, I sought out a copy of the book. And that scene has stayed with me: I think that ghastly, delicious shock may be the essence of what I seek in some of the work that I make.
Similarly, this week has given me a chance to explore new things while holed up in the living room. I’ve been trying out “painting” with thread, an extremely fiddly kind of embroidery that I wouldn’t usually have the patience for, as a possible technique for a college project. I read the sublime Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, her account of unexpectedly becoming the guardian of a wild creature despite herself. It’s absolutely not a “nature for nature’s sake” sort of a book, rather a concise, economical and utterly beautiful account of a life fundamentally reexamined. I listened to a This Jungian Life podcast episode and considered the symbolism of redemption.
I also whipped through Finn Family Moomintroll, which I never held with as a child because, as Tove Jansson has it, “Moominhouse was… a place where everyone did what they liked and seldom worried about tomorrow. Very often unexpected and disturbing things used to happen…” I lived to worry about tomorrow, and didn’t need any more disturbing, thank you very much. At 44, I could finally cope with it. A triumph for maturity.
What put me most in mind of the strange riches of days off past, though, was a documentary about a fashion show. Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Nighthawk, released earlier this month, explores the inspiration behind a couture show that went viral in January thanks to its extraordinary aesthetic and attention to detail. Models weaved along a dark, greasy street oozing Parisian noir with faces gleaming like glass. Broken dolls, corseted femmes and hommes fatal/e were swathed in tattered trench coats while clouds of wild hair and extraordinary tailoring combined to cast an appalling, appealing spell.
I reclined on my sofa, sous ma couverture, drinking in the research that went into creating this masterpiece. The embroidery techniques! The photographs by Brassaï - the master of capturing the city of light’s dark heart! Hand-woven merkins! The extremely method approach to sourcing vintage fabrics! And the innovations from printing with silicon to airbrushing peel-off skin masks on models’ faces! All of this, plus a full recording of the show itself, struck me with the same force of excitement as Dorian Gray’s denouement.
The documentary is not perfect - there’s a dreadful bit two thirds in when it gets very influencer-y and someone says “omigod it changed me on a cellular level”. Kim Kardashian has a kameo and John Galliano’s past racist and antisemitic abuse might have been a bad dream (to be fair, it’s covered in another documentary, High & Low: John Galliano, which came out in March 2024). But as a doorway into a creative world, and the work that goes into making that world turn, it is really something. It took me far away from feeling like death warmed up while at the same time making me grateful I’d had this pocket of time outside of normal life to absorb something extraordinary. Would that all of our sick days could contain such multitudes
I too was a sickly child with high anxiety. So much of what you write chimes a deep, sounding note in my chest. And also I now need to see hand woven merkins stat
All this is delicious, apart from your being unwell. I hope you're feeling better this week. xx